Monday, February 13, 2017

The Collapse of Civilization

Bronze Age collapse

Another late night documentary. This one is only 45 minutes long. Before I watched this I couldn't have told you when the Bronze Age was, only that it was a long time ago, and I certainly knew nothing of any 'collapse'. Well, YouTube fixed that.

Wars at this time were fought between armies of war chariots. Each chariot was manned by a driver and an archer. The thing that got me was that the sea-people where able to defeat the armies of the empires because they used their javelins on the horses that pulled the chariots.

There is some kind of disconnect here. I'm thinking that the sea-people succeeded because they were not following the established 'rules of war' that the empire's armies were using, and those rules meant that horses were sacred and not to be touched, only enemy soldiers were fair game. It was a matter of honor, and probably economics. Horses may have been worth more than gold back then. Then the sea-people came, all members of the underclass for whom horses were nothing more than symbols of oppression.

Honor and glory are two qualities that have been associated with warriors since forever. Along with honor, there were rules, and as long as things were 'fair', the rules stood. But when outsiders enter the fray, or when the fight is no longer 'fair', those rules are discarded, and if you cannot adapt, you are likely to lose.